Just two sentences long, it says, simply, "Alex, a teenage skateboarder, accidentally kills a security guard in the vicinity of Paranoid Park, Portland's tough skate park. He decides to say nothing."

And that's it. No page-long explanation. No gushing adjectives.

That's just how art-house fixture Van Sant rolls. He's had his mainstream success ("Good Will Hunting") but it's when he's defying expectations -- operating on the fringe, as so many of his characters do -- that Van Sant seems to really feel at home.

PARANOID PARK

3 stars, out of 4

Plot: A teen struggles with the knowledge that he is responsible for a man's death. Based on the novel by Blake Nelson.

The intriguing "Paranoid Park, " opening today for a weeklong run at the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center, fits that mold nicely.

The film, which was celebrated at last year's Cannes Film Festival, is a drama, but it's a subtle, simmering one as Alex (Gabe Nevins) tries to wrap his head around what he has done.

Despite the baggage carried by the "e" word -- "experimental" -- conjuring, as it does, images of turtleneck-wearing navel-gazers with German accents, it's hard not to use it when describing Van Sant's film, though it's probably fair to call it gently experimental.

Van Sant's tendency toward outside-the-box filmmaking is certainly on display, but -- unlike many others of its ilk -- "Paranoid Park" is girded by a genuinely compelling story, one that is never torpedoed by pretension. When Van Sant does deploy the occasional unconventional technique, it's elegant and unobtrusive.

There's his penchant for long shots of blank faces. There's the occasional trading of 35 mm film stock for 8 mm, in slow-motion, to capture the feel of skating films. There's his nonlinear story line.

Van Sant also makes generous use of nonprofessional actors, though that's an experiment that doesn't function as seamlessly as others in "Paranoid Park." Many of them were cast via MySpace, and their lack of on-screen experience is often too obvious. (Happily, Nevins is an exception.)

Their inclusion does, however, lend an authenticity to Van Sant's film, which ends up being an intriguing snapshot of today's teens and a mesmerizing cinematic touchstone, one that reaches back to that scared kid inside you -- the one you've been pretending doesn't exist for the past decade or three.